Watchman Campground, Zion National Park
Seldom set foot in your neighbor’s house – too much of you, and he will hate you. ~ Proverbs 25:17
The original plan was to hike the Watchman Trail tomorrow – – Blaine’s choice for his birthday, but the skies promised to be more favorable today, so we altered our plans.
It was a nice hike, and not very challenging with only a 368’ elevation gain. In fact, we didn’t even take our hiking sticks along this time. We’ve discovered that the trails here in Zion don’t really require sticks; not even the more difficult ones, because they generally pave the hard parts. Cheaters.
you either get this, or the mountains in the distance turn totally white. : (
Much prettier than the pictures show!
Must be purple flower season. : )
Once again, we were struck with the awesomeness of this place! And evidently we aren’t the only ones, because once we reached the end of the trail, we discovered two young women sitting in separate places journaling and praying. For those who don’t know, journaling is a form of worship and prayer. Writing your thoughts, feelings, requests to God. It can be a wonderful practice, as it not only helps your mind to focus, it’s a way to document answered prayers.
The song, “Revelation Song”, played over and over in my head today. It’s the closest I can get to finding adequate words of worship this place demands.
You did the same thing when we visited Hawaii. lol!
It was still supposed to be hot today, so after we completed the Watchman (before 10am), we drove off to find the highest elevation in the National Park, in search of cooler temperatures. Lava Point is in the far north end of the Park and boasts an elevation of 7,890-feet. To give you a bit of perspective, even if we’d climbed to the very top of Angel’s Landing, we’d still be 1,100-feet short.
Besides incredible, speechless views, we also found what we were searching for – – a 30⁰ temperature difference! And with that . . . snow! We were feeling frisky and wanted to engage each other in a snowball fight, but all the snow was on private property with fences around it, and none was close enough to the road to sneak a few handfuls. ☹
We’ve never seen them before.
It’s also the end of the road.
On the way home, still atop the plateau, we came to a fork in the road. To the left was back the way we’d come. To the right, Cedar City and a different path. The only question was – – do we have enough gas to explore? The Jeep has a nice feature that tells you how many miles of gas you have remaining, and it told us 86 miles, which was more than enough to get us to a Cedar City gas station, so exploring it is!
Cough! Cough!
We saw some lovely sights!
But dropping 2,000-feet down the mountain forced our gas to the front and away from the gage, giving us low fuel warnings. It was a little nerve-wracking to say the least! Once we leveled out though, we were fine. And the Jeep received a good feeding to reward its stellar performance.
Believe it or not, we drove near the town of Hurricane on the way home. You remember Hurricane. It’s the place we just left. 😊
And we did something this evening we haven’t done in ages! We ate at a real, bonified, honest-to-goodness restaurant for dinner! It boasted top ratings on Tripadvisor, and it had outdoor seating. We kinda sorta looked it over once we got there, and everything seemed to be top notch in the coronavirus cleaning regulation adherence department so we stayed. The tables were clean and void of any condiments, silverware, etc. the menus were heavily laminated and sprayed and wiped with sanitizer after every use. The servers wore facemasks. After you ordered, they brought out condiments that were the cleanest we’ve ever encountered at a restaurant.
And the burgers and fries – and the views – were top-notch! They were half-pounders though, so we were stuffed to the gills and I didn’t even get to finish my fries. It was nice to be out once again!
After dinner, we walked the streets of Springdale; in part to enable some digestion, but also in search of Zion Canyon t-shirts. Usually, when you’re in a tourist town, every shop carries the same stuff, but not here. We must’ve looked at at least 40 or more shirts! Plus the one’s in the National Park store.
And we didn’t purchase a single thing. Yet.
They also reflect on our tile floor in the evening. : )
Tomorrow we celebrate Blaine’s birthday!